Years of work restoring Hawke's Bay river celebrated

Te Kaha Hawaikirangi's contribution to restoring the Tutaekuri River was celebrated, as a finalist in the River Story awards. Photo / Supplied

A Hawke's Bay resident who has devoted years to restoring the Tutaekuri River has been recognised in the national River Story awards.

Since childhood, Te Kaha Hawaikirangi has wanted to restore the river so he could bring back the "plentiful yesteryears" described by his elders.

The 30-year-old was raised hearing stories of the awa so wide and deep that steamboats were able to reach his marae, Waiohiki. They also told him of the life in the river, an abundant whitebait population and hauling in great sacks of eels.

However, since then the water quality had deteriorated, eels were fewer, and algal blooms meant the river is "not a place now during the summer where you'd actually want to swim".

"Not only are we losing our connection to the river, but also that whanaungatanga about hanging down there with your family and creating those stories".

So, in recent years he and whanau members created a hapu management plan in collaboration with four hapu who associate with the Tutaekuri catchment. As well as looking at what other hapu are doing - such as on the nearby Clive River - they have been embracing both the Maori world view and western science.

Their work has seen willows thinned out, 8000 native trees and grasses planted along the river, and whitebait spawning sites identified. They are also involved in the TANK project.

"I know restoration will take years, but I'm heartened by the big turnouts - a hundred plus people generally turn up to help on planting days," he said. "Many of them are rangatahi, young people".

Mr Hawaikirangi's contribution was recognised at last week's national 2017 River Story Awards, run by the Cawthron Foundation.

Although he did not win, the Hawke's Bay Regional Council compliance officer said he felt privileged to be recognised as one of three finalists, which meant he was able to "give a bit of air time" to the work they were doing.

"I was just pretty stoked to be a finalist and sit among the awesome group that were nominated for the awards."

With the project in its last year of funding, he hoped more recognition within the Hawke's Bay community would help with their work to improve the river.

Mr Hawaikirangi also works as the Treaty settlement group helping to restore Lake Tutira. He does hapu work in his spare time.

Cawthron Foundation chair Dr Morgan Williams said the River Awards were established to draw attention to the state of our rivers. The most improved rivers were determined by a panel of scientists using monitoring data from LAWA.

"But more importantly, to recognise where communities, councils, farmers and industry were achieving significant improvement in water quality in one or more of their local rivers.

-For more information, or to find out more about how you can help search Nga Hapu o Tutaekuri on Facebook.